Harry Herber

"’Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons,’ Woody Allen famously said.’ Okay. So every year AC Nielsen’s AdEx figures are released. They’re analysed, criticised and regurgitated in countless articles. The flaws and inaccuracies are hotly debated. Today it’s my turn". So what does Harry Herber make of the 2003 advertising revenue figures?

Passports have been filled with new and exciting visas. Three weeks leave has become more like six or eight weeks leave. Media planners and buyers are having a ball, and its costing media owners plenty. As far as Harry Herber sees it, there isn’t much difference between agency staff accepting media owners’ "incentivised" offers or their free overseas trips.

The uptake of customised marketing packages favours electronic media, says Harry Herber. Which is one reason television will grab the big revenue in 2004. Television, where adflation is minimal, is very buoyant and has huge scope.

Advertisers may have gotten away with treating the consumer like a dupe in the past, but a lack of product differentiation is forcing a change. Harry Herber looks at the reasons behind the shift in mindset.

Tongue firmly in cheek, Harry Herber remarks that South Africa’s average media planner and agency creative is “absolutely brilliant.” By article’s end, it’s apparent that he’s equating the industry’s ‘whiteness’ with its meekness.

In-house media agencies seem to be back in fashion amongst marketers, but Harry Herber doesn’t get the upside.

What lies at the source of the power shift away from the agencies towards the marketers? Harry Herber, group managing director of The MediaShop, points a finger at globalisation.

Harry Herber’s hankering for the past is driving him mad. Where has quality, loyalty, professionalism and passion gone?